US warships arrive in Stockholm for military exercises and as a warning
ON BOARD USS KEARSARGE, in the port of Stockholm – If there has ever been a powerful symbol of how much Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed Europe, the sight of this huge warship, full of 26 fighter jets and 2,400 marines and sailors, moored among recreational boats and tour boats this port, it really would be.
“No one in Stockholm can miss the existence of this great American ship here in our city,” said Micael Byden, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, standing on the deck of the amphibious ship in the shadow of an MV-22 Osprey in clear skies on Saturday. “There are more opportunities on this ship,” he wondered, “than I could gather in a garrison.”
In this constantly neutral country, which is suddenly not so neutral, the USS Kearsarge, which appeared just two weeks after Sweden and Finland announced their intention to seek NATO membership, is the promise of what that membership would provide: protection for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia turns his anger on his Nordic neighbors.
But the ship is also a warning to Sweden and Finland about their own potential obligations in the event of a conflict, as General Mark Milley, the United States’ top military commander, clarified during a visit on Saturday.
“The Russians have their Baltic fleet,” said General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but NATO would have its own member states wrapped around the Baltic Sea when Sweden and Finland join. Essentially, the Baltic Sea would become a NATO lake, with the exception of St. Petersburg and Kalingrad.
“From a Russian perspective, it would be very problematic for them, militarily,” General Milley said.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who attended a press conference aboard General Milley, tried to emphasize NATO’s defensive nature.
But military experts say there is a clear expectation that Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the alliance means that they would contribute to any maritime strangulation that NATO could put in place in the Baltic Sea in the event of a war with Russia, a potentially high order. for the historically non-aligned countries.
Both countries want security guarantees, especially from the United States and other NATO allies, during this transitional period while negotiations with Turkey maintain their formal membership in the military alliance. Sweden’s Secretary of Defense Peter Hultqvist told reporters in Washington two weeks ago that the Pentagon had promised several temporary security measures: US Navy warships steaming in the Baltic Sea, air force bombers flying over Scandinavian skies, army forces training together and US specialists helping to counter any possible Russian cyber attacks.
But while President Biden has promised that the United States will help defend Sweden and Finland before joining the alliance, US officials have refused to say specifically what form that aid would take, in addition to what General Milley characterized Saturday as a “modest increase” in joint military exercises.
The fact that some NATO countries refuse to send actual troops to Ukraine, Nordic officials acknowledged, reveals the difference between promises of military aid to friendly countries compared to promises under a Senate-ratified treaty that says an attack on one is an attack on everyone – NATO. famous article 5.
Nevertheless, Kearsarge is in the Baltic Sea to take part in exercises aimed at teaching NATO, Swedish and Finnish troops how to carry out amphibious attacks – storming land that has been seized by, for example, Russia. It is an enormously complex type of war operation – think of the D-Day landing during World War II – that requires coordination between air, land and naval units in what military planners call a mission with “combined weapons”.
If the exercises go according to plan, thousands of marines, sailors, pilots and other troops from 16 different countries will seize a beach head in the Stockholm archipelago.
This is exactly the kind of military operation that Russia has not yet been able to carry out in Ukraine, and that the inability to do so, say military experts, is a big part of why Russia has not succeeded in capturing the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa.
Pentagon officials note that when thousands of Russian Marines landed in southern Ukraine on the shores of the Azov Sea on February 25 to target Mariupol, they did so about 430 km east of the city, avoiding having to carry out a truly controversial amphibious attack.
Along with the lack of the notion that the Russian military is an effective machine, the request from Sweden and Finland to join NATO is perhaps the biggest unintended consequence of Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Instead, Putin now faces the prospect of a NATO military alliance that is not only outside his doorstep but surrounded by part of the house.
Latvia’s and Estonia’s accession to NATO in 2004 stretched its Baltic border with Russia for just over 300 miles; Finland’s accession to the alliance would add another 830 km, which places St. Petersburg almost within range of the artillery.
Sweden also shares a sea border with Russia, as does Finland. Within a day of Finland’s leaders announcing that their country would apply for NATO membership, Kearsarge, named after a civil war union sloop known for sinking Confederate ships, was on its way to join Finnish and Swedish fleets for training.
In fact, NATO has scheduled many demonstrations of force with Sweden and Finland. “A whole host of exercises that were not on the exercise schedule are there now,” said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a military expert at the Finnish International Institute in Helsinki.
The emerging partnership is a two-way street. For NATO, in addition to wrapping the alliance around Russia’s western border, the entry of Sweden and Finland allows military planners to reconceptualize all northern European defenses. Previously, the alliance had to make compromises on where to concentrate troops, headquarters and command and control to provide the best advantage.
All of this will undoubtedly anger Mr Putin, who has long complained about the expansion of the military alliance into what he sees as his own sphere of influence.
“There will be an almost continuous presence of non-Finnish military units in Finland,” said Salonius-Pasternak. “Are they the key to Finnish defense? No. But it probably contributes to the calculation for our eastern neighbor. “